Naked City

On July 12 a Travis County District Court jury found Marcus Green guilty of practicing medicine without a license, and he was sentenced to 40 years in prison. Green has yet to be tried for three counts of sexually assaulting his "patients," women who he called to come to his "Austin Complement Clinic" for a checkup. His alleged ruse was that their last gynecological exam had come back abnormal and required further testing. Once at his office, though, a witness testified, Green "examined" them with a battery-operated plastic device called the "Flexi-Fun."

Green testified in his own defense that the Flexi-Fun was part of "androgynopathy," an alternative kind of gynecology he began formulating during a previous 31-month stint in federal prison on counterfeit charges. While in the clink, he spent thousands of dollars educating himself and even began writing the first androgynopathy text -- which is why he didn't see anything wrong with calling himself a doctor, he testified. The state obviously didn't buy Green's new-age come-on, and neither did the jury. (Several jurors reportedly had trouble keeping a straight face throughout Green's testimony.)

While this time around it was the state seeking to sink Green and his alleged cons, about two months ago he appeared in court as a witness for the state. In March, Green testified about his insurance "business": He would take out life insurance policies on high-risk individuals -- homeless people, prostitutes, and drug addicts, for examples -- and keep up with the premiums, thinking that at least a couple would likely kick the bucket, and he could collect. When homeless drifter Jim Dunham was found murdered in Green's car out in East Travis County, Green explained that he wouldn't actually have wanted Dunham dead -- not when he'd taken out a policy on Dunham just three days before, which might seem suspicious. With the aid of his testimony, prosecutor Todd Ward sought to finger Greg Steen for the murder, but to no avail. That jury didn't buy Green's self-professed knowledge of the insurance business, actuarial tables, and the like, either. Steen was acquitted. Green claimed he spent hours learning the insurance game while in the federal big house on the same counterfeiting charge which provided the time for his medical studies -- quite a double major.